Mark Custalow, from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia, addresses the reality of spirits visiting and communicating with people. Dreams and visions – these are not uncommon. For many of us, personal experiences can determine or influence what we believe and trust. Is that safe? Can we trust them? What do we rely on to guide us? The Bible says that there are deceiving spirits… familiar spirits that are false. How do we know what is truth and what is deception?
Mark is a Christian Native American.
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Transcript:
I’ve had many of my native friends, I was pastoring at a particular reservation up in the northwest for a number of years. I had church members that would come to me and say, “Pastor, I had a dream last night and they would have seen or heard a loved one who has been dead for some time speaking to them.” And they would relate to me what had been spoken to them by their loved one.
I guess here’s what I would want you to know in that instance. We as native people, we certainly honor our loved ones. We honor our elders and we respect them. That’s just part of who we are. I want you to also know though that we have a sworn enemy. And the sworn enemy, his name is the devil. It’s Satan. It’s Lucifer. And Satan is sworn to yours and my destruction.
I’ve seen Satan destroy a lot of lives and he uses a lot of tools to accomplish that. One of the things that he does to defeat, destroy, discourage, dismay us is he deceives us. He uses half truths that might be partially true enough for us to believe but it’s not ultimately absolutely true.
And you may be saying, “Well, Mark, how do you know that?” Well, I know that because there is one source in this world that we’ve been given by our Creator that’s the source of absolute truth. And that’s the Bible.
Jesus said that He’s truth. The truth is actually a person. It’s not just a body of knowledge. It’s a person and it’s Jesus.
The Bible is the source of absolute truth. And here’s what I know about absolute truth. All absolute truth points to Jesus. So if you hear any spirit, anything pointing you to some means of connecting with God, your Creator, other than pointing you to Jesus, it’s deception from our sworn enemy. Because again, he wants to keep you from all of God’s love, all of God’s mercy, all of God’s grace, all of God’s blessings. And he does that by deceiving us through things that are familiar to us. And what’s more familiar to us as Native people than the elders and the loved ones that we are endeared to and love in our cultural realities?
But again, if we’re hearing voices, seeing visions, and they point to anything other than Jesus, then it’s not absolute truth. There’s only one source for absolute truth. We have to accept this by faith. And God said to us in His Word, “Jesus is truth. Jesus is the only way.” That’s ultimate spiritual truth.
End Transcript
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